Mayor on second line shooting: Crime 'not going to go unanswered'

Mayor Mitch Landrieu called for witnesses to step forward and help solve what has become one of the worst shootings in years in the city of New Orleans.

Updated figures show 19 people were wounded when multiple gunmen opened fire on a second line taking place in the 7th Ward on Mother's Day afternoon. The toll increased steadily throughout the day, with initial reports of "several" injuries, then a dozen.

The victims include 10 adult men, 7 adult women, a 10-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, police said. At least four people were in surgery mid-afternoon and patients had been taken to four area hospitals.

Remarkably, no one was expected to die from their injuries.

No suspects were in custody and it was not clear what motivated the shooters. Police are looking for three people in connection with the attack.

"Shots just started ringing out and everyone started running," one eyewitness told WDSU's Rachel Wulff. "Next thing I hear, 10, 15 people got shot."

The incident happened shortly shortly after 1 p.m. on a sunny Sunday. NOPD detectives spent the entire afternoon at the scene and interviewing witnesses who had gone to see loved ones at the hospital.

"Maybe two different types of weapons," Serpas said. "Immediately after the shots were fired, our officers saw three people running away on Frenchmen toward Claiborne."

Serpas said one of the shooters appeared to be a dark-skinned man, 18-22 years old, with short hair and wearing a white shirt and blue jean shorts.

"Obviously, these are unusual circumstances," Serpas said. "We have second lines that occur in the City of New Orleans virtually every weekend this time of the year. We had a full complement of police officers (on detail).

"It appears that these two or three people just for a reason unknown to us started shooting at towards or in the crowd. It was over in just a matter of seconds. Police were everywhere."

Estimates have put the number of parade participants in the range of 200 to 300 people.

"These kinds of incidents are not going to go unanswered," Landrieu said Sunday evening at an impromptu news conference at LSU Interim Hospital. "We're going to be very aggressive. There were hundreds of people out there today, so somebody knows who did this and the way we're going to stop the violence together in the city is for everybody to come together, and we really need help."

Anyone with information is asked to call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.

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